Promoting Music & The Arts in York & Beyond

The Receivers – Interview

Local lads The Receivers have been going from strength to strength, and it looks like next year might be even bigger for them! Check out how they’re doing below with our chat with frontman Nick Aldous, and see where you can catch them live in the new year…

By Jane Howkins

How was your 2018? Any highlights you can tell us about?

Hi! I can’t believe we’re already looking back on 2018, it feels like yesterday that we played our first shows of the year. 2018 has been great for us – our highlight has to be our biggest show yet at Leeds O2 Academy. To have reached the Centre Stage final was a privilege but to play on the stage I’ve seen my idols play on was something else. Having one of my idols (Ross from The Cribs) watch our set was quite unreal as well.

What are you looking forward to in the coming year? Anything in particular, either in your private life or as a musician?

I’m looking forward to our first string of dates in January! I love touring, and even though this is only tiny with 3 shows and they’re all rather local it still excites me. There’s something about packing up the car and being somewhere else everyday that I like. We had to cancel a show in Newcastle in March because of the snow so I’m glad to be making up for that!

You have a show coming up at The Fulford Arms soon! Are you excited for that? Who are you playing with?

I cant’t wait! The Fulford Arms is where we had our first gig on 7/1/17 so its always fun to go back! Simon at Northern Radar has put an incredible line up together with Silvertones, Neon Salmon and Azera playing too! We’ve played with Silvertones before and they’re a brilliant band! I don’t know much about the other two but Azera and Neon Salmon are two of the coolest band names I’ve ever heard so I can’t wait to check them out!

Do you have any more tour dates coming up? If so, when and where, and who are you playing with?

We’ve got more shows lined up but we can’t quite announce them just yet! We’ll be going back to Manchester at some point which I’m particularly excited for as its always fun there.

You’re actually from York. How is the music scene in the city? Any local bands you can recommend we check out?

It’s really healthy at the moment – almost daily I’m hearing of new acts and if you’ve been in town recently it’s hard to miss some of the great musicians street performing. It seems like everyone is really buzzing at the moment and I love it, I think it’s healthy to have so much music and so many varieties of it.

Fear and Loathing are my favourite band at the moment, they’re so chilled out and different to anything else i’ve heard in a while in the York scene, think The Velvet Underground if they had Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead on guitar.

What are your favourite venues to play or visit as a fan? Do you go to The Fulford Arms often?

Yeah my favourite is definitely The Fulford Arms – everyone there is just so nice and the sound is excellent too. They put on their own nights as-well as using external promoters so it’s just home to us.

Do you have any music planned for release this year? If so, what can youtell us about that?

We’ve got a new record coming out in 2019 which we are so excited about. In all our previous recording sessions we’ve kind of just gone in, tracked everything and left in a day. This time we spent a week in the studio putting the finishing touches to the songs as well as writing them which i think has been really healthy for us. We’re really proud of it and can’t wait to show you!

What sort of stuff influences you when making music, and what have you been listening to recently?

I hate to say it but literally anything can influence us. Alex and I have been listening to a lot of pop music recently so we’ve been trying to write more melodically and use that element more in our music. But then we’ve both really gotten into IDLES as well so it kind of cancels out the nice clean pop music we like haha. I love the emotion in IDLES’ music and the honesty in the lyrics. We can take something from anything and put it into a tune. However, I feel if Blossoms never released Cool Like You,as musicians we’d be in a completely different place. That album has been huge for us in terms of inspiration.

Any last words for the fans?

Thanks a bunch and we’ll see you on tour! And if we aren’t coming anywhere near you then please book us haha!